The League’s second acquisition was also its first commissioned portrait, and once again the work of Edward Dalton Marchant, who would later become a League member. Marchant lived for several months in the White House, while he painted President Abraham Lincoln from life. This painting shows the President signing the Emancipation Proclamation. It is the first Lincoln portrait completed after that signing.
Edward Dalton Marchant
Member of the Union League
American, 1806-1887
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 1863
Oil on canvas, 55 x 45 inches
Signed, dated, and inscribed at middle left: “E.D. Marchant/From Life 1863”
Commissioned by members and friends of the Union League, 1863
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